Mass Effect Legendary Edition Is Quite the Upgrade in Shepard Comparison Shots

I can't tell which one is supposed to be old vs new. They're both janky in different ways 🤪

EDIT: Ok, when you click the individual pictures you can see which is original vs new. I actually prefer the look of the original better, minus the red lighting. The new eyes are very unsettling.

@sketchturner my thoughts exactly!

Quite the upgrade lol... No point getting this if you already have them.. .. If you never played them then that's a different story

I'm still quite torn on this. I've never played any of them, and I've heard 2 is meant to be phenomenal. That said, I really don't want to get invested in a story that is known for having a poor ending in mass effect 3. It's like how I struggle to recommend game of thrones to anyone now, because despite how excellent the first 2/3rds are, I don't want someone to get invested in a story that ends poorly. Advice on this would be appreciated though!

@BranJ0

Im pretty sure that because of the uproar at the poor ending at the time, released a dlc to fix it

And i never played when they were originally release but I'm strongly considering buying this set

@BranJ0 I think if you can get past the ending being terrible and treat all games separate, you'll be good. The games are incredible, if you've never played them before I would definitely recommend it.

I think I prefer the red toned lighting of Eden Prime(?) in the OG, but it still looks good in the remaster.

@BranJ0 Yeah like @EquiinoxGII said, don't let the crappy ending of ME3 put you off. All three games have incredible characters and brilliant story moments/hugely memorable missions. There's a good reason why it's still a beloved Trilogy.

@BranJ0 I definitely prefer ME3 to 2 but the ending is a bit strange 😅

I always thought that the character models looked the best in ME1. Imported created characters looked horrendous in ME3.

@sketchturner That's my thought on the eyes. What is wrong with the new eyes. If they fixed that it would look fine, but those eyes feel so very wrong.

Am I weird for thinking the original looks better? It's like the original is real life A New Hope Tarkin & Legendary is weird CGI Rogue One Tarkin something about just looks...off

Shame it wasn't a remake like Demon souls or Crash. The fact i didn't know wich one was the upgrade says alot. Smells of cash grab and a wasted opportunity.

@get2sammyb Disagree the new one actually looks worse. But need to see full on gameplay to make a proper comparrison and judgment. But early days its a bare bones remaster and a cash grab could of been so much more.

People saying they can’t see the difference need glasses. You all are some seriously and hard to please awful people

Let's talk about what's really important: what does remastered Yvonne Strahovski look like in ME2?

@jmac1686 So because we don't agree with your opinion we are awful people. Cmon dude I love the collection and buying it day one, just wish they put more effort into it. Your comment was out of order and insulting.

Honestly I cant tell which side is the upgrade. Neither look much better than each other, just different.

Edit: after confirming the right side is the original, I think the original male Shephard looks much more natural than this new version.

Which one is the upgrade? The one thats looks like 360 graphics or the one that looks like 2010 pc graphics? Still awful looking, they should of just added the original games to ea play, or ps now.

'Quite the upgrade' nah! 😂

@jmac1686 in an article headlined with the words 'quite the upgrade' I'd expect you know 'quite the upgrade' it isn't, they're both awful and not what I bought a ps5 for, really don't know why companies waste time and money on some janky upgrade ,if you're gonna do it, do it like bluepoint,its like those ps1 games on the ps store when they proclaim 'now looks stunning in full HD' no...no they do not 😂

Looks really nice the old ones look like they came from the Skyrim character creator PS3 era.

I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite article on the Citadel.

Like everyone here is saying I can't tell which is the one that's supposed to be the remaster, do the PC version of these games look better than these? Is still a day one buy for me but yeah they both look like PS3 games.

Wow. Why is femshep so SHINY? She looks like a Barbie doll. And why do her cheeks stick out like a chipmonk's? Give me my old shep back please. Ouch.

Having never played the series, I can’t tell which is which in that screenshot above. Both look good?

@BranJ0
You know what they say: Not the destination, but the journey matters!
This is a game trilogy with around 200-300 hours worth of narratives, some of which are truly exceptional. Also, they did expand the original ending, to make it more satisfying. Holding a meme (at this point) against the whole series is quite unjustified. But still, your loss...

Also, in my experience, around 90% of games can’t stick the landing and have a poor ending. Recent examples for me: FF7 remake and The Last of Us 2. Still I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy the games despite the letdown.

As a PS5 owner, the lack of a PS5 version and officially stating that there is no PS5 patch and they're not planning to release one is beyond me. This is holding me back from buying this game on release. I'll wait for the re reviews.
The last remaster from EA (Need for Speed Hot Pursuit) was lackluster. It was basically the PC version ported to consoles.

@ThaBEN Yeah that rubbed me the wrong. I took it as "sorry we don't want to waste more hours optimizing for PS5/Xbox so either buy this or get lost"

@ScottyG Shepard.

I removed my old comment because I thought the remaster was the one on the right... which I now know it isn’t. I might just be crazy but the older version looks way better too me... very underwhelmed. I got the originals on PC so I wasn’t planning on getting this anyways but I’m just a bit surprised is all lol. I’m sure the remaster will be good though.

Are the pics of the original shopped? They look way way too sharp to be legit. The OG was Microsoft published and Xbox (classic) exclusive. I played on PC when it finally released and don't recall it being that sharp at the time... Though i probably still had a crt at the time. A nice trinitron crt.

I haven't seen the eventual ps3 port in person though, but i can't imagine it was that upgraded from the originals. It launched much later than xb and later pc though so perhaps it already had some remastering in it?

mark meer cracks me up in this , have this locked in on the xbox will soon on the ps4 and pc , love these games sucks about pinnacle station but everything else my summer is sorted! i just usually go into games as default but on the elder Scrolls i tend to customize the character.but we gota save tombs! spent the last 2 summers in days gone and a play through the original mass effect , great game series i want more shep and crew please! maybe a big bad reawakened from a pulse sent out from the reapers????

@Arugula exactly. Love Mass Effect but, all the stuff so far is making me feel meh. They really should have targeted PS5/XSX and not PS4/XBO for this imo.

@Juanalf yeh the attitude has lost me. I think I'll skip this till it's bargain bucket or I've nothing else to play.

@LTPenguin you will be able to at some point. Missed opportunity imo.

@NEStalgia

Wrex.

@BranJ0
I played Mass Effect 2 originally on PS3 with the comic book "up to speed" recap of Mass Effect. Loved it, still one of my favourite games ever; I actually went out and bought an Xbox so I could play the first game!

I would compare the quality arc to the Alien, or Terminator trilogy of Movies; excellent slow paced start, blockbuster action sequel that's possibly better and well, a third one where the mileage varies.

@Juanalf
The developer even mentioned somewhere that they did consider targetting the next-gen consoles, but that they felt the graphical upgrade they achieved wouldn't match the feeling of a "next-gen game". That's the reason why they decided to skip PS5 / XSX. Maybe someone can quote the exact phrase but it was something like that.

I don't want to sound negative but the PR around this remaster feels like 50% apologies and reasons why they couldn't do something and i don't like that. It's like they're preparing us to not get our expectations too high for the end result.
I'm referring to the cut multiplayer, missing DLC, no next-gen version and not even a next-gen optimization patch and stating they're not planning to release one.

This has me worried that it'll feel like a quick cash grab instead of a "Legendary Remaster Edition".
Maybe i'm just being overly critical because i love the original trilogy so much.

@ScottyG I should go.

@ThaBEN It's like the WiiU release of ME3. "Let's just throw it out there, incomplete, and hope it sells."

Hopefully it's better than it looks. I was looking forward to a cleaned up ME1. But the ps4/x1 versions were already running reasonably nice looking.

I'm just happy I can play all 3 games and dlc(except pinnacle Station?) on current gen/last gen... Anything else is a bonus.

@BranJ0 If someone were to go on a long, wonderful vacation in the Maldives, idyllic sandy beaches, crystal clear water, and on the last day they stepped on a pile of cow dung, nobody in their right mind would say "This whole vacation sucks, I'm NEVER going to recommend this place to anybody!"

I don't understand this kind of erratic thinking.

@MemSec FF7 remake didn't really have an ending though, did it? It was one huge cliffhanger.

People really can't tell the difference? Are they looking at compressed images on their phones?

@zettaibaka
I don't want to spoil things so i won't go into details, but i think i can relate a bit to @BranJ0's post.

The main unique selling point of the whole Mass Effect Trilogy was that your choices matter and have big consequences for the following game. It was one of the first triple AAA games that used this mechanic so well and let you import your save game which forwarded your choices. Things like your crew setup, who lived and died all carried through the entire trilogy and were actually intertwined with the story! So there was a major build-up to some grandiose finale based on your individual choices which never got fulfilled.

Especially frustrating if you tried to let everyone survive in all 3 games and always get the most positive outcome in moments where you have a choice. Where even side missions can have big consequences like deciding the fate of entire species, if you let them live or wipe them all out. It sometimes took hours and hours of exploration and planet hopping to even find these side-missions.

It's more like If someone were planning to go on a long, wonderful vacation in the Maldives, idyllic sandy beaches, crystal clear water, but then you actually break your leg on your way to the airport so you won't get get to go after all and won't get what you were hoping to get. Sure, the build-up to the trip was still nice, but the whole thing still leaves a bad taste in your mouth. (Kinda like the ending for Game of Thrones.)

I know i exaggerated a bit but this is how it felt for some players. The fact that they had to make extra DLC to alter the ending because of the backlash it received is actually quite telling how most players felt.

Having said that i truly enjoyed these games even with the original ending. But i can understand the people who didn't.

No idea which is which. They all look nice.

So is it just the exact same games with some new textures? That's disappointing.

@zettaibaka
Sure. It did have however an ending sequence, which butchered the original story - especially the introduction of the villain - so bad, I’m very curious how they try to make sense of it in the sequel.

@ScottyG @NEStalgia Best conversation in the whole trilogy.

Don't see anything more than a greedy ea/bioware cash grab £60 for quicker load times and some better lighting male shep only looks better due 2 the lighting. MP missing dlc from me1 too much work to repair 🤨🤨 If ya own the trilogy already and the dlc I just don't see the incentive not at full price. And now the elephant in the room the ending if ya one of those people who can't rewatch game of thrones because of the ending its kinda same thing here because the ending is well... S**t as F**k 😭😭

The old images look far more natural. I’m sure the remake will look better once animation, frame rate, resolution, and (maybe) improved textures are accounted for but, in those still images, the older models look more like human beings.

I wish all of you lived near me. I'd be able to get my copy easily on day one without worrying about it being sold out. Don't buy it then. Play Destruction Allstars. No room for crybabies in the Mass Effect galaxy.

@ThaBEN Good points. I tend to play games for the gameplay first and story second, and I wasn't expecting player choices to have massive consequences in any of the Mass Effect games, so that might be why I wasn't so disappointed. Those games don't do that very well and I don't think anyone starting them now should expect that. They can however expect a great space opera though with a very nicely fleshed out world, and some level of choice and consequence.

@MemSec I'm glad they "butchered" the original story. l don't want a rehash of FF7 classic. We all know how that goes, and how it ends, so the more the story diverges from that, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

There have been plenty of changes
https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2021/2/2/22261001/mass-effect-legendary-edition-remaster-bioware-graphics-visuals-ending

@StylesT depends if you're an avid fan like me. I'll be purchasing this package.

@BranJ0 you will love it. The ending is just people's preference. The ending didn't bother me at all.

Do it do it now 😀

Us 'gamers' are a funny lot. We cried and moaned for a Mass Effect trilogy remaster for years and now that we're getting it we cry and moan about it.

@zettaibaka
Fair enough, but why call it a remake then?

@ApostateMage agree, said a while ago bioware was in a no win situation for this. Make too many changes and people will complain its not faithful to the original. Not enough and its a cheap cash grab.

I hope to play this down the road but I only played the original for the first time in 2019, including some dlc for all three games. As good as 2 and 3 are (and yes, 3 is good if you have only played the extended cut and citadel dlc ending), 1 is by far my favourite. The end sequences for that game and the dialogue throughout are brilliant and will be worth the ride again.

@MemSec To me that's what a remake is: making something again from the ground up. Otherwise it would be an enhancement.

@zettaibaka
my problem was not that the story was changed. I’m all for such creative freedom. But how poorly it was done.
The gradual introduction of Sephiroth is one of the strongest parts of the original’s narrative. Not only did they change it, but what we got instead was a nonsensical mess.

maybe it's just me but i thought the "new ending patch" for ME was a complete waste of time, and they really shouldn't have bothered. it didn't alter the outcome, nor make it so that all your choices didn't still come down to a colour choice. it was only enhanced in that it had a some more cutscenes to try and explain the endings - lack of closure and plot holes remain. the ending was sloppy and badly told - i let it go.. bioware probably should have done the same, rather than trying to appease the "remake the ending" crowd..

@MemSec I agree that the Sephiroth creepy scenes were a bit overused. I really enjoyed the gameplay though, which was more deliberately paced and less chaotic than FF15's real time combat. And I play games for gameplay first and story second, so it's all good.

@HazyDave that's basically just graphics stuff and a few controller changes though.

I already own these games in multiple formats. What's the point of buying it again?

@LordSteev don't worry, the internet isn't going to run out of downloads.

Personally I am yet to see a reason to pay again for something I already own in multiple formats, though. But by all means, go for it if you want it, superfan.

@streetad
I want physical media on this one. Collectors item. I've probably played each one more than five times, but never any of the dlc. To be able to string it all together this way and play it chronologically is fantastic. I'd buy it if it were just a simple port, never mind the work they're putting into it.

If that makes me a fanboy, so be it, I'm a fanboy.

I'll get them when there down in price

@BranJ0 the ending to ME3 is way overblown. If you pay attention to the story throughout the trilogy, the ending is solid. The same people that talk trash on the ending are the same people that are actually saying they can't tell which screenshots are original and which are remastered.

@leucocyte The patch was a "sorry, not sorry" patch to me. It changed nothing, fixed nothing, just "expanded" it for no reason.

@NudieBarVIP At the start of the trilogy they told you that the decisions you make would affect the outcomes of the game. I think much of the backlash was that that was simply untrue. The choices you made in the game didn't affect the ending, you got to the final room, got the "star child" that had nothing to do with the story in any way until you entered that room, and got a multiple choice question to choose your vague, impersonal, and generally undefined ending. The whole game pretty much fell upon "Renegade, Paragon, or IDGAF." It was a tremendous let down from an otherwise very well put together story. After 3 games building up the menace of the reapers, intelligent star child explaining that you pick a door and choose your outcome really is out of place, like they rushed it through the week before going gold, having realized there was no time to write a proper ending and actually build assets for anything beyond a single penthouse lounge in space. The game really ends best if you just do the sendoffs with your crew on the ground, never go to that room, and leave the ending as a cliffhanger from there.

Or we can take Andromeda as the canonical conclusion.

Finally my character wont undergo extensive plastic surgery in-between games!

Pinnacle Station is only on 360 apparently.

Luckily I still have my old copies from last gen.

The DLC is still available in the 360 store for $5.

I think EA need to check the definition of legendary.

So...I’m confused. Did everyone actually think this was gonna be a complete remaster with totally up to date graphics? It was always gonna be a spit and polish job. Expectations here are waaay too high.

Also I don’t care if it looks upgraded so long as it ‘feels’ upgraded. Improved controls across the first game etc.

Even then...I love these games and will be 100% be holding it on day one

those are some ugly upgrades, if we even want to call them that. they have been frankensteined lol. at the very least, couldn't they "properly remake" the main protagonist's character models from the ground up if nothing else? afterall, they are trying to get us to double and triple dip into buying this collection, so throw us a bone!

@Johnstonian2003 Yes. Yes we did. Because EA told us it was. Over and over again.

Not a Blue Point style ground up remake, but still a total remaster rather than "being me1 up to the me3 visuals, port the WiiU version of 3 and put it in the can.". I can see me1 being worth the revisit here because they tweaked the gameplay (but... Did they make it worse by making it shooter? Probably.). But I'm not seeing a reason to double dip on 2 and 3 being improved in any meaningful way. This is me1 remastered and 2 and 3 are mostly just packed in.

is it weird that l perfer the original femal over the new upgraded one?
Male one looks great though!

@NEStalgia see this is where i disagree...this is their statement when it was announced. “For many months now, our team at BioWare has been hard at work updating the textures; shaders, models, effects, and technical features of three enormous games. Our goal was not to remake or reimagine the original games. But to modernize the experience so that fans and new players can experience the original work in its best possible form“

So they are clear that is was not a remake or reimagination...this was just an update to textures, shaders etc and some controls update...ultimately it is the “original work”.

@Johnstonian2003 right, a remaster, not a remake. The problem is it doesn't seem to be a very thorough remaster either. Me3 doesn't actually look updated at all short of having the equivalent of a pro patch. Me1 did get remastered but not really beyond the level of me3. I accept that 1 may have a lot of gameplay changes so that one I'm willing to call a remaster, though i also suspect those changes once we see them may be met with a lot of criticism, as i expect that they steamrolled the MS/Bioware rpg and replaced it with the EA shooter.

But for 2 and 3, they really didn't seem to update much which makes it questionable as a remaster. The fact that they're not even bothering to remaster it for the now current generation indicates how low cost an effort they really put into it.

You can say KT didn't do that much with the nioh and nioh2 remasters for ps5 either, but a key difference there is they're giving the 2 remaster away for free for all owners of the game.

I think to an extent this is kind of "made for PlayStation owners" because there's a huge audience that's locked out of the original games sure to ps3. For anyone that also plays pc or xbox, it's going to be a weird proposition if you already own the games and can play them any time. The resolution bump, and the improvements to 1 are the main selling points.

I'm curious now, i should fire up me1 on xsx and see how it looks in motion. That one is probably janky.

The male Shepard upgrade looks like a bad face lift.

I’m one of those who has not played through this trilogy so I’m pretty excited to give it a go, ugly Shepard or not.

@BranJ0 ME2 is my favorite game of all time. I’m in the camp that the ending of ME3 is poor, but it was made passable by the extended cut ending. ME2 and ME3 has some of the best dlc ever in video games (not Witcher 3 good, though). It also helps they announced ME4, which gives me hope that they will retroactively fix the ending of ME3. I played the entire trilogy again last year, and it still holds up really well.

@Hypnotoad107 @NudieBarVIP @Bagwag82 @RPE83 @MemSec @EquiinoxGII @ShogunRok Okay the outstanding number of people who are telling me to get it have swayed me! I'm not going to get it straight away, but I'll add this to my list, and in the near future I'll give these games a go. It doesn't sound like the ending of 3 ruins everything by any means at all, in which case I think it's worth trying these games out and seeing what all the fuss is about!

@ztpayne7 Interesting you prefer 3 to 2! Why is that?

@ThaBEN This was essentially my train of thought - from what I'd heard, it sounds like it all builds up towards something and that something is then very lacklustre. However, most people seem to think the journey is still worth it, so I'm going to try it out!

@BranJ0 just remember, it's a marathon not a sprint. When you play through them take your time, absorb the lore, and explore the planets etc.

@Bagwag82 Ahh okay, will do! I think I won't play all three at once - I'll play 1, then take a break for a month or two, then play 2, just so I don't try and rush through all three games at once!

@BranJ0 I personally think 2 has the worst story in the trilogy. I think the gameplay in 3 is better, with much more open environments. 3 is also the culmination of your efforts across multiple games, sort of like infinity war/end game if you watch marvel movies. 3 was incredible except for the last five minutes, which I describe as more confusing than awful. It was a poor decision on their part. I’ve never played 3’s dlc.

@BranJ0
If you havn't played this trilogy at all, man i'm kinda jealous.
You definitly need to check these out. I don't know what type of player you are, but as @Bagwag82 said. Take your time and explore. Some side missions are more satisying than main mission. And the side-missions are completly optional. So is exploring a lot of different planets. (Although, most planets have just a small patch to explore, so keep your expectation in check when you view the space map with dozens of planets you can visit ).

And the bonding with your crew and other NPC's is optional. But when you really invest time into talking to them you can get some deep friendships and hear their backstories, thoughts and motivations.

I think at least 50% of what i enjoyed most about this game was just the talking and trying to help people like i'm some kind of young bad ass versions of Star Trek's Picard with guns.

Especially after each main misison. When you're back on the bridge of your ship, walk around and talk to all your cremembers (or no one, it's really up to you) because these unique conversations between missions can build a lot of character development and hear their thoughts on what just happend. These dialogues are completely missable if you just go straight to the next main mission but will introduce new branching paths for friendships or romances later on when you engange with your crew.

All i can say is just don't focus too much on getting to your destination. Enjoy the ride and take your time.